“I reported the accident,” said Harrold, “but I didn’t call for an ambulance yet and he wasn’t shot.” He looked at the paramedic who had strapped the cervical collar around Reese’s neck as a precaution before taking his vital signs. “Was he?”
“Not that I can see.” She gave an exasperated twitch of her head. “People call in the wrong things all the time.”
“We got the same call,” said Dwight. “What happened? Reese take that curve too sharp?”
I started to tell him but we had to step back out of the road as a pickup drove slowly by. All of a sudden, it screeched on brakes and two angry hunters jumped out. Both were dressed in brown camouflage jumpsuits and bright orange hunting caps and one of them slammed the hood of Reese’s truck with the flat of his hand so hard that it left a dent.
“This is the bastard, all right. See them diamond treads? Where’s my buck, you dickhead?”
Dwight and Trooper Harrold both moved forward to intercept him, but the hunter banged the truck hood again. “We found where it come out of the woods and saw the blood where somebody stopped and picked him up. Same tire marks. What’d you do with it, asshole?”
His buddy pulled at his sleeve and pointed up on the bank about thirty feet away. To the casual eye, the sticklike object projecting up out of the dead weeds might’ve looked like fallen twigs, but the hunters recognized antlers and they headed up the bank.
The door of yet another pickup banged and I saw the familiar uniform of a wildlife officer. “You find it?” he called to the hunters.
“Yeah, this is it,” they called back.
The EMS paramedic had signaled for the stretcher.
“He’s probably okay,” she told me as her assistant maneuvered the stretcher into place, “but that cut on his face needs stitches and so does the one on his thigh, so I want to transport him to the hospital.”
“Have I got to go?” Reese asked her anxiously.
“I strongly advise it, sir,” she said. “In my opinion, you may have sustained internal injuries and you could have a closed head injury. You don’t want to risk a blood clot, do you?”
Reese started to argue, but about that time his eyes landed on the wildlife officer who was approaching and he clutched at the paramedic’s arm. “Yeah, I’ll go with you.”
The officer walked over to us and he seemed surprised as he spotted me. He’d testified in my court just this week. “You know this boy, Judge?”
“My nephew,” I said as they eased Reese out of the cab and strapped him onto the stretcher.
“He able to talk to me a minute?”
The paramedic nodded and the officer leaned over and looked at Reese.
“Son,” he said, “you got a permit to take deer?”
Reese moaned and closed his eyes.
“Which hospital y’all taking him to?” I asked.
“Dobbs Memorial,” the paramedic said and briskly trundled the stretcher over to the waiting ambulance.
I gave the warden Reese’s name and address and he scribbled out a citation.
“I need to see his driver’s license,” said Trooper Harrold.
“You’re not going to charge him, too, are you?” I objected.
Harrold thought about it a minute. “One-vehicle accident? No property damage except to himself? I guess there’s really not a whole lot I
“Seat belt violation?” Dwight suggested helpfully. “Passengers are supposed to be fastened in.”
“Naw,” said Harrold. “I’ll let ol’ Ranger Rick here have him. That boy’s got so much damage on his truck, any ticket I give him wouldn’t add much to his worries.”
I went over to tuck the citation in Reese’s pocket and told him I’d call his parents.
He nodded in weary resignation and then he grabbed my hand. “You reckon you could get Jimmy White to tow my truck over to his place?”
“Sure,” I said. “One condition, though.”
“What?”
“Tell me what really happened Saturday morning.”
If possible, he slumped down into the stretcher even more dispiritedly, then nodded his head toward the EMS team. “Make ’em step back?”
“Give me a minute?” I asked the paramedic.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll start the paperwork.”
I turned back to Reese.
He swallowed hard. “Billy Wall didn’t kill Mr. Jap.”
My nerves knotted in fear. “Not you?”
He shook his head impatiently and more blood oozed from the cut on his chin. “Remember how I told you
